


One Last Time

by Matilly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Divorce, F/M, False Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 16:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5877616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matilly/pseuds/Matilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I want the divorce.’</p><p>Draco smiles, eyes still on his book. ‘Nice one, Astoria—’ he starts and when he looks at her, she knows it’s her expression that makes his smile disappear.</p><p>Astoria is not smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Time

They are tired of hearing it over and over again. It is not always for the same reason. Sometimes it was a miscarriage, other times it was just her body messing with her brain, making her feel pregnant when she wasn’t. She grew tired of receiving the same news repeatedly, of feeling less and less capable of ever being a mother. It made her feel unworthy of the man sharing a house with her when she could not even give him an heir.

Astoria has always wanted to be a mother and has always wanted to give her children the best and happiest life possible, the childhood she never had. Her father was rarely home, and when he was he usually stayed in his office, working on Ministry paperwork he didn’t let Astoria and her sister ask about. Her mother, on the other hand, was a housewife, but not the warm, kind, nice Molly Weasley housewife type. She was distant, putting her daughters’ education in the hands of private professors, and Astoria promised herself she would be different when it came to her own children.

When she started dating Draco and months turned into years together, she knew just what to say when he proposed. Now that they share the same last name, the dreams she created when she first found out she was pregnant are shattered as the successive attempts fail. Her marriage is not as solid as before. They still love each other, but she does not search Draco as often and his job seems to give him an escape from life at home. She focuses on being a Healer, avoiding the maternity ward at St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries as much as possible and making it through another day.

 

* * *

 

She watches him read. No clue what the book is about, not that she has bothered trying to find out. His profile has always been a beautiful one to her, the pointed Malfoy features and blond hair making him unmistakeable in a crowd. It’s a sight she has accepted she will lose soon. Her feet are on his lap and months—perhaps years—earlier, she would have used that to distract him from whatever he was doing at the time. Now she has other things in mind.

‘I want the divorce.’

He smiles, eyes still on his book. ‘Nice one, Astoria—’ he starts and when he looks at her, she knows it’s her expression that makes his smile disappear.

Astoria is not smiling. She is not joking, and when she removes her feet from his lap, Draco knows it had been enough time for her mask to fall if she was messing up with him. She keeps the distance between them, looking at her lap before her eyes find him again. He is surprised, hurt, worried and afraid. She thinks she detects some anger in his grey hues too.

‘—What?!’ His voice is hoarse and Astoria knows she has broken him into one of the many parts he was shattered into when they met.

‘I can’t do this anymore. It’s not fair to either of us,’ she says, getting up to have an excuse to do something else. Her feet take a couple of steps, a hand running through her hair and a sigh leaving her lips. It is the sound of someone who has given up. ‘I love you and I know you love me, but we’re not happy.’

‘We don’t _need_ a bloody baby to be happy!’ He is standing too, but has not made a move to get closer to her.

‘We’re growing apart because I can’t have children! We’re focusing more on our careers than our marriage and that won’t work in the big run.’

‘So, you give up? We promise things to each other and then you decide it’s over?’

‘I can’t do this! I cannot stay in this marriage when we’re so far apart and—’ she starts, but he interrupts her.

‘We don’t need children!’ he retorts, but it’s a lie. She remembers how excited though terrified he had been that first time she got pregnant, and she knows they would have to listen to their parents speaking about an heir for as long as they lived.

‘I want to have children and so do you, despite that fear of turning into your father and whatnot. And I can’t carry your child thanks to bloody genetics and whatever other stupid reason.’

‘Do you think I’ll want someone else to be the mother of my children? You bloody hell know how hard it was for me to just get to the point where I _trusted_ someone like I trust you!’ His words make her want to take back her statement. It had been hard for Draco to open up to her, share with her his secrets, and now she feels she has betrayed his trust.

‘I’m sorry,’ is all she manages to say, voice low, her eyes on his. And she is.

Draco disappears shortly after that. He grabs his jacket, wand and some money and disapparates. She has no clue where he headed and doesn’t dream of going looking for him, because she knows he needs space. His sudden vanishing makes her cry like she has lost the most important part of her, and perhaps she has. Even after marrying Draco, most of the times Astoria cried she did so in silence, away from him. Tears are a sign of shame to her, proof she is not the strong woman she wants to be (of course, in the rare occasions she has seen Draco cry, it had only made him look stronger in her eyes, but it was a different thing when it came to her own tears.)

She doesn’t know how long it takes her to stop crying, but Draco has not returned when that happens. It is late because the night has settled and all she wants to do is sleep. It is later she realises she has fallen asleep and Draco has just gotten into bed. She doesn’t let him know she is awake even though she knows he probably knows it.

 

* * *

 

They don’t talk much for the next couple of weeks. A ‘good morning’, a caress, a kiss, a ‘have a nice day at work’ is all they direct at each other. The bed is always shared, but Astoria doesn’t search for his warmth at night (not because she doesn’t _want_ to, but because she doesn’t know how he will react).

It is one day after work that she arrives home to find him sitting on the sofa, where she had first started the conversation about divorce.

‘Hey,’ she says hesitantly, approaching him. Draco is staring at some papers Astoria doesn’t look at; she is more interested in the expression of defeat on his face.

‘I’ve already signed them,’ is all he says, handing her the papers. It is a shock when she starts reading them and the word _divorce_ pops out.

He had taken care of everything without telling her, and Astoria has to sit down beside him to digest it all. Draco doesn’t move; his eyes are on the papers and he looks devastated but resigned. It is glancing at him that gives her doubts. If she signs it, she will lose him. If she does not sign it, sooner or later she will regret not having done it.

‘I don’t want to do this,’ she whispers and Draco’s soft sad smile breaks her even more.

‘I finally understood what you meant. I don’t think either of us _wants_ to do this, but I know why we _need_ to.’ She finds no counterargument and he is gone after he leaves a kiss on her forehead. And then she wants him to fight for them, to tell her she’s making the biggest mistake of her life, but he’s respecting her will and she hates him for it.

She stares at the papers for a long time, but the ink doesn’t leave the quill. Astoria expects Draco to be asleep when she gets to their bedroom, but he is awake and reading or pretending to read and she has had enough. Her feet rush across the room and soon she is lying cuddled onto his side, crying, and it takes a millisecond before the book is forgotten and Draco’s arms are around her. He lets her cry, doesn’t say a word, and as she leans closer and presses her lips to his, he kisses her back and doesn’t know if it is only her tears he feels on his cheeks or if it is also his own. They both need the physical contact, and when Astoria whispers ‘One last time?’, Draco can only nod and love her the way he always has and be loved just the same. They take it slow, agonisingly slow they would call it if it was not the last time and the last night they had share as a couple.

When he is kissing every inch of her, Astoria thinks this was a bad idea: the divorce, the separation from the man she loves. It all seems stupid when he is letting her know how loved she is. When she opens her eyes to look at him and Draco sees them filled with lust and love, he knows he should have never signed the papers, because he does not have it in him to be selfless and he knows it is her fault he now puts her happiness ahead of everything else.

She wakes up to find him still sleeping and lets herself watch him for a while, hoping he does not wake up but hoping he does. Blue eyes study his features, commit them to memory, and it's his face that she sees behind her eyelids in the shower she takes some minutes later. Astoria dresses quickly, making as little sound as possible, because Draco has always been a light‑sleeper and she knows she is likely to turn into a coward if he wakes up.

The divorce papers are still in the same spot where she had left them the previous night, but this time she does not hesitate. Her name is signed under his, the parchment is carefully put in her purse and she disapparates to the Ministry. Her things are left behind for now, because there are some things one cannot possibly do quietly and her soon to be ex‑husband is still sleeping, although he wakes up almost as soon as she leaves.

It is when the papers have been cleared after a series of spells to check for any sign of a false signature and when she tells her co‑workers at St. Mungo’s to call her Healer Greengrass again that everything becomes real. She is divorced, she is not Draco’s wife anymore and she is continuously reminded of what she has lost when she misses being called by his last name.

 

* * *

 

Months go by and it gets easier living apart. They learn not to search for the other when they apparate home or when a nightmares wakes them up in the middle of the night and they are met with an empty bed. The flat they shared was rented to another couple and they both found smaller flats that did not remind them of each other.

To others, Draco is back to his cold demeanour: a snarky person who befriends as few people as possible and who should have left Astoria sooner. On the other side, most people are glad she is no longer a Malfoy and still keeps a smile on her face. What their co‑workers don't realise is that both of them suffer in silence and find ways to deal with the suffering the divorce has brought. Draco starts drinking again, like he had when the war ended, whereas Astoria does not find the same interest in food as before. That is when the dizziness starts, but her body seems to refuse eating, making her vomit at the mere smell of food in the morning. Her weight decreases, but hardly enough for people to notice it and she doesn't give it much thought either.

It is when her co‑workers are talking about period cramps that she realises she cannot remember the last time she has hers since handing over the papers. She blames it on the divorce, yet a nagging feeling starts growing on the back of her mind, because Astoria remembers what it had meant when she last had felt sick in the morning... She takes into her own hands to find out if her fears are true, for the last thing she wants is to have her life even more commented than it is. A couple of days later she finds out, after she has prepared herself mentally. She knows the result before it comes; it is the explanation for the increasing difficulty to fit into her clothes despite her poor nutrition. If it has been four months since she had turned in the divorce papers and she is still pregnant, then the only thing she could take from this was that her baby was fighting to stay inside her, despite how Astoria had been treating her body. The feeling of hope swells inside of her too quickly for her to pretend she has not felt it.

Maybe she still has one last chance. Maybe she could give Draco his heir and make him a father, despite his fear of becoming the only father he knew.

 

* * *

 

She stares at his front door for a while. She has managed to get his address thanks to one of his co‑workers, and has apparated far away from his flat, enough for him not to listen to her apparition and for her to think about what she will say to him, as though she has not done it countless times in the past two days.

Her hand has risen and fallen to her side a couple of times already, as she gains and loses the courage to knock, but when she finally does, Draco opens long after her knock, although Astoria can hear him moving inside the house, grunting at whoever is disturbing him or at whatever is standing between him and the door. He looks at her without interest at first, but soon his eyes widen, and whoever he was expecting to have knocked on her door, it was certainly not her. She has missed those eyes, like everything else about him, but she does not dwell on it.

'Why are you here?' are his only words (not that Astoria was expecting him to say anything different), and she replies with a simple 'We need to talk.' Draco stares, waits for her to say something else and, when she doesn't, he is about to speak, but she pushes past him, because some matters are not to be discussed in listening range of a possible nosy neighbour. His smell invades her as her body brushes past his and it is difficult to focus after that.

His flat looks like his old one the first time Astoria had showed up unannounced, about two months since they had become friends and already when she knew she saw him as more than that: books and pieces of parchment everywhere, a mug on the coffee table, the characteristic smell of coffee and a hint of firewhisky. It makes her miss the past even more, but then she is turning around and Draco starts to ask her what the hell she is doing there, but her mouth blurts it out before he can finish it.

'I'm pregnant.' He watches her for too long, his eyes going from her face to the small bump showing under her shirt, and when he looks back at her, she has no idea what he is thinking, but she lets out the first thing on her mind, as though it needs saying: 'It's yours.'

'What do you mean? What the hell— What do you—'

'I'm waiting. _Wishing_ , but mostly waiting until my body—' she doesn't continue, because if she says it out loud that she is waiting for her body to reject this baby, then it will be harder to keep her composure in front of him. Somehow he understands her and nods, grey eyes still watching her and Astoria does not know what else to say for a moment, even though this is exactly how the conversation had gone in her mind. 'If you want me to, I can warn you whenever, you know, I have an appointment. Of course, you're free to show up or not, but‑‑'

'Why are you doing this?' Right then he looks older than he truly is, tired and in pain, reminding her that this is a touchy subject for both of them. That is what makes her façade fall, because they have seen each other at their best but especially at their worse and there is not anyone Astoria trusts more than Draco.

'One last time,' she murmurs and they both recall it as their last three words as a couple. His nod is the understanding that she needs to do this one last time, despite how much it will hurt in the end, because she needs to at least try despite the possible outcome.

_One last time._

'I'll be there. In the appointments,' he says some seconds after and she knows he will. He will show up, one way or another, and it is her turn to nod, a small smile on her lips.

Soon she is brushing past him again, being intoxicated by the proximity, and out in the hallway again, taking one last look back before she leaves the building and walks back to the place where she had apparated. She never sees Draco taking a breath when she walks past him, nor does she see him spending the rest of the afternoon staring at the picture where her biggest bump ever is showing and where her smile is the brightest.

 

* * *

 

Months go by and Astoria's wardrobe changes with the pregnancy. Despite all the clothes she had bought for her longest pregnancy, she finds herself in need of more clothes to accommodate the ever growing belly.

They attend all the regular appointments together, always, and both reply negatively when asked if they want to know the gender. Both know sooner or later her body will decide the time has come and there is no need to know if they have lost an heir or an heiress. They never say it out loud, but both hold onto the hope enough months have gone by when that time comes so their baby is viable; dreams only have a chance of coming true if one never speaks them aloud.

It brings them closer, the pregnancy, and makes them want to have it all back: the marriage, the home, the life. Another thing they never speak of, because when it all ends they don't know what will happen despite their wishes, but they both know how their relationship would take it if this pregnancy ends in the same way as the previous ones.

Astoria doesn't buy baby clothes; she has enough from the longest pregnancies. There is everything a baby boy or a baby girl could wear in white and shades of green. With their skin colours, Astoria has always thought their baby would look like a living piece of parchment wearing yellow clothes; if the Malfoy genes have any saying in the matter when it came to hair colour, even the white clothes would have been a bad choice. Still she gains the habit of folding and unfolding all those outfits she keeps on a designated drawer. All the baby products she has bought over the years are in a large box in the same drawer, enlarged to fit everything, but her flat lacks a crib, a changing table and everything else a newborn needs, because Draco and Astoria never went as far as building a nursery. So that drawer holds what she hopes will happen, but hides it in case it never does.

They start talking again, those long conversations they used to have, but now they never get into personal fields. They prefer it that way; the weather, their jobs and the happenings of their weeks are safer topics.

It's an excuse for Draco to spend more time with her, to watch her belly grow from day to day (and wish to pinpoint the exact second it does) and, despite being painful, to fall in love with her over and over again.

They're sitting on her couch when she feels it and it’s so foreign Astoria stops midsentence, pauses for a second, unsure if she really felt it, only to take his hand unceremoniously and put it on her belly; sure enough, their baby kicks again and then once more. Her eyes swell with tears and, when she looks up, Draco looks dumbfounded and surprised and so many things at once, but he's also too close, his scent too familiar and his gaze is intense when she meets his eyes, grey watching blue. It's inviting and Astoria wants to get lost in them, kiss him like her mind is telling her to do. For a second she wishes he kisses her instead so she can blame him for it. When he doesn't, she forces herself to be brought back to reality, shifting in the couch and as away from him as possible.

They dwell on it as the first time they felt their baby kicking and the first time they were so close and said so much with a simple gaze. Over the following months, Draco and Astoria grow even closer. They go back to the relationship they had before she had gotten pregnant that first time, a couple years ago, only without the intimacy.

They do not go over names. It sounds silly, and they’re not sure they’d reach a consensus, but both research them when they’re alone. It’s another thing they don’t speak about, because there’s always the ‘what if’ that will make them lose any bit of hope they still have.

 

* * *

 

It’s May and the celebrations about the anniversary of the end of the Second Wizarding War reach an end. It’s May and Draco is at his flat, remembering how it was in the battlefield all those years ago (it’s not even been a decade, and it still feels like yesterday; probably will always feel like it). It’s May and he’s looking at the faint grey ink on his forearm, his left hand holding a glass of firewhisky when the owl arrives, and the paper it carries only has two words:

_It’s time_

He meets Astoria at the hospital as they had agreed to do only some weeks before. Years later he discloses he first apparated to her place, worried she might have not managed to go to the hospital on her own. He’s led to the room she’s in, and they see the relief in each other’s face that the other is there.

‘They say we’re still a couple of hours away, but…’ Astoria talks in the plural, and Draco is not sure she means her and the baby or her and him, or maybe the three of them, but he doesn’t think about it for long, because she’s not done talking. ‘I needed you,’ comes out in a whisper, as though she wishes anything but to confess it. He simply nods, trying to calm her down with a smile, making it come out as something resembling a grimace instead, like he’s just as in much pain as he imagines she is. And he is, only it’s not physical, but pain nonetheless, because he wishes it was him in her place, but above anything wishes they go through it all to have a child in their arms in a couple of hours; he doesn’t think they’ll overcome it if the end is different.

He needs her too, and it scares him how much he does when Draco realises he has never seen Astoria in such a fragile situation. They had gone through hard times since they had gotten together, but she could have cried, screamed, but she has never looked so much like her like is at stake, all because of a baby they still know nothing about.

It’s the fourth day of May, in the first hour of the morning, and Draco knows the Healers lied. Four hours have passed, the double of what they had told them, and there is still no child, but Astoria is getting more and more tired, cranky and nervous. So is he, and he’s about to swear at the midwife when the Healers magically close the curtains of the room and the midwife settles herself at the end of Astoria’s bed. It’s time, he knows it. And the thought scares him. He knows it scares her too, because she squeezes his hand and looks at him with widened eyes, and the only thing Draco can do is squeeze her hand back. He doesn’t try smiling this time, knows he will never manage to make it, but he doesn’t turn his eyes away from hers until she lets out a breath, smiles that small smile she hides from everyone else, and looks back at the midwife.

Everything lasts much longer than he expects. He has never seen a birth and doesn’t want to do so again (unless Astoria wants it, and unless her body wants it; and nothing tells him they will get together after _this_ ). There is sweat, tears, screams, and if they were close, Draco would ask Arthur Weasley how he managed to stand beside his wife through all those births, but maybe he didn’t. A matter that only haunts him for a second, because soon Astoria is pushing again and his whole attention is on her.

She’s relaxing and he’s watching her, wiping the sweat from her face, when the sound reaches their ears. Draco stills, the cloth still in his hand, and the couple stares at the origin of the cry. It’s unmistakeably a baby, and it looks too pink and too dirty not to be a newborn. Above anything else, what surprises them is that it is really crying, alive, and neither of them knows what to think, what to do. ‘Congratulations, it’s a boy,’ the midwife announces, and Draco has managed to command his hand to put the cloth down, and watches as the baby— _their_ baby—is deposited in Astoria’s arms.

They watch him calm down in her arms, his eyes closed, his face scrunching adorably. She looks at Draco, confused, unsure whether she should frown or smile. He’s wearing a contained expression, eyes still on the baby, and Astoria decides to look at the newborn in her arms instead. For the first time since she had gotten to the hospital, she smiles, reaching for Draco’s hand and squeezing it. ‘Our son,’ she whispers, but she knows he has heard her, because he sighs and leans to press a kiss to the top of her head.

 

* * *

 

They can’t decide on the baby’s name for a while. Not even when Astoria reached the second trimester, in one of the previous pregnancies, did they reach a consensus on a boy’s name, so they call him their son or simply the baby. They decide to stay at Astoria’s flat; it has her smell, Draco argues (he is sure he read something about babies feeling more comfortable around their mother’s smell). He buys a crib while she is still at the hospital, the day after the birth. He asks the girl in the store for help, and in the end buys the white wooden one and a bunch of other baby stuff he has no idea if his son will need or not, but he finds it necessary to buy them nonetheless. Their baby has nothing but a dozen clothes and hardly anything else, and he knows babies need more things than he remembers.

The baby is kept indoors for a couple of weeks. It’s like their little treasure, their secret. Their families don’t even know Astoria had been pregnant, and they know what their parents would say about not having picked out a name yet. Draco sleeps on the couch instead of going back to his place every night (although Astoria had said they could transfigure the couch into a bed), because he wants to be close to both mother and son. The crib is in her room, albeit Draco wakes up every time the baby cries (he has always been a light sleeper anyway) and listens, checks if she has done the same, eventually making himself stand up and go check on them both just because he feels the need to make sure they’re both alright.

Being a mother fits Astoria like a glove. Even if she struggles in the first days, motherhood has always been in her blood, more than Draco thinks fatherhood has been in his. He feels like a creep, but he cannot stop himself from checking on their baby countless times during the night when she’s sleeping. The boy has his hair colour and a hint of hers, and he’s small and looks too fragile for Draco’s arms – and there’s that part of him that doesn’t want someone so pure, his _son_ , in contact with the sign his left forearm still bears.

Astoria is the one who makes him hold his son for the first time after many attempts, four days after he’s born. She makes him sit down on her bed—after Draco argues that he’ll probably let the baby fall (they both know it’s not just that)—and then his son is in his arms. And his eyes alternate between him and Astoria, not knowing what he’s supposed to do. He has not asked her to do this and he isn’t tailored to be a father, but she’s patient and smiles and takes his hand, adjusts it closer to the newborn. It’s when he stirs in his sleep that Draco fully focus his attention on his son, despite the nauseous feeling deep down in his stomach. He can feel Astoria’s eyes on him, watching his every reaction. The boy makes a face and for a second Draco swears there is a smile on the baby’s lips, and all his father does is hold him closer still, Astoria’s hand still on his. And maybe, he thinks, maybe he won’t be the father he thinks he’ll be, but the father he _wants_ to be.

They stop sleeping separated a week after the birth, after sharing the first kisses in months. Astoria initiates it when they’re watching the baby sleep in his crib. She’s afraid Draco will push her away, it was her fault they got divorced in the first place, but he locks eyes with her when she pulls away and whatever he was about to say gets lost in his throat at the sight of blue hues begging him for forgiveness. So he forgives her, because the main reason for their separation had been overcome already.

The baby’s name is chosen after much discussion. Tradition runs deep in their blood, and they decide to keep the constellation theme and name him Scorpius. He meets his grandparents in an awkward encounter in the Greengrass Manor. Everyone is happy the baby is a boy. Boys mean their future children will carry their last name, and to conservative grandparents that still carries meaning. No one is happy the pregnancy was kept a secret, especially because both grandmothers would have liked a saying in the clothes Astoria wore or in the needs of a pregnant woman. Scorpius’ parents are happy they were the only people besides her co-workers who knew about the pregnancy.

They move to a different apartment shortly after, when the baby no longer sleeps in their room, the only bedroom in Astoria’s flat. The nursery is decorated with both his and her favourite things from their childhood, but Scorpius mostly has brand new things. He represents a new generation of children who live in a free, calm environment, and some things are best kept in the past.

Scorpius’ first years are very happy ones, Draco and Astoria make sure about it. His last name might give him a hard time when he’s older, maybe, but his parents raise him to be different, unprejudiced, and that’s yet another thing that makes Narcissa dislike the woman her son decided to marry. It’s none of her business, Draco’s wife thinks when the subject is being discussed once more at dinner at the Malfoys, five years later. Then Astoria’s eyes focus on her son, and he grins and starts telling her about a Muggle boy he had played with that day in London for the umpteenth time. And he looks so happy she knows it won’t be the last time they will go over her parenthood decisions, but it’ll never matter as long as Scorpius is happy.


End file.
